


a rose by any other name (the definition is lost but i remain)

by beepbedeep



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, I LOVE LEIA SO MUCH, SAD IT'S SAD, all about Alderaan?, and dying?, mostly just Leia!, she's thinking she's processing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22235566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beepbedeep/pseuds/beepbedeep
Summary: Their planet,her planet, is dead. Gone. Annihilated. A whole entire world,nothing but rubble. Just something for pilots to avoid. There are no words to make that better. There is no story that can cut this pain.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	a rose by any other name (the definition is lost but i remain)

In the years after Alderaan disappears (dies, is killed, is murdered, is _obliterated, purposefully_ , Leia wishes people would stop with platitudes and say what really happened, it is not their honesty that is the crime, but the destruction and them speaking the truth does not make that worse, does not make it more or less real) people start writing. The survivors of Alderaan grieve, they unite, and begin to write. Poets, journalists, writers of every style and persuasion decide that the way forward is through words, as many as possible, arranged in specific ways. Sweeping epic poems, heartfelt memoirs, descriptions of culture and traditions, all about Alderaan’s might and history, full of passion and pain begin to pop up everywhere.

The words are beautiful, Leia thinks, meaningful for the people who wrote them, the people who read them, who can share and mourn and remember together. ( _they probably help_ ) ( _she thinks, she thinks, she thinks_ ) As the Princess of Alderaan, (the last princess of a dead planet) she is tasked with reading all of these poems, stories, epics, and meeting the writers, lifting them up, praising their hard work – she tells them how their words _paint a picture_ , bring back a breeze from their _dearly departed home_ , that they’ve made her _pain vanish_. She meets their eyes and hugs them and does all the right things and tries to not seem like she’s lying through her teeth. (When she gets back to her rooms, she cries.) Their planet, _her planet_ , is _dead_. Gone. Annihilated. A whole entire world, _nothing but rubble_. Just something for pilots to avoid. There are no words to make that better. There is no story that can cut this pain.

(She hates being called “princess”, hates it or needs it like breathing, maybe. She is _Senator Organa_ , that is who she is now, that is what she does, she is a diplomat who is trying to heal the galaxy, not a member of any royal family. She is no one’s princess. Some people call her that and she wants to scream, rip out her (precious, royal) hair at the roots. It is _not her fault_ (the death of her people), Leia knows that, has been told over and over again, but the fact remains she was _on the Death Star_ , she watched her planet destruct, and other Alderaan survivors can sooth their pain with words and shut their eyes tight against reality, but _she could have done something_ , should have thrown her body at the General, should have stabbed Vader in the heart, should have strapped a bomb to her body and let it detonate, she was _there_ and yes, she pleaded, but _words are nothing_ (that’s not true, Leia’s father taught her that words are everything and that is true, it has to be, wars can be fought and won with words alone, but on the Death Star her greatest weapon was wrenched away, rendered useless, and she cannot help but hate herself for not preparing any other kind of assault) and the cries of _princess! princess!_ that spring from other survivors only serve to remind her that if she is a princess, she is a princess who let her people die. 

The Rebellion is a noble cause, one she wholeheartedly believes in and logically she knows that the Empire would have destroyed her beautiful planet at one point, because it was too strong and too good, but _maybe it would not have been this way_. Maybe she is a princess but her people are definitely dead and maybe it was her fault and maybe it wasn’t but nothing changes that fact. Nothing. Never. Now, she is trying her best, really, _really_ , trying to fix the universe, and Senator Organa is the leader they all need, Princess Leia is gone, she died the day her home, her whole world imploded. So. Don’t call her “princess”. The only time she doesn’t hate it, want to scream, want to cry, is when Han says it. Han, because Luke would never call her by anything other than her name, and Han says it less like a title and more like a _just a word_ [a prayer, a plea for healing, a wish that she’ll remember him, make eye contact this time]. He murmurs it when she comes into the room, whispers it against her skin at night, rubs it back into her body with warm fingers and an impossibly gentle gaze, _princess, princess, princess_ , and somehow it begins to feel like home.) (again. Home again.)

She is broken, missing pieces. That must be what the words do for some people, fill the gaps in their chest that were created when their home imploded, but Leia’s hot writhing ball of guilt and pain and desolation has carved a hole in her being so large that nothing can ever fill it. Still, maybe it does not need to be. Alderaan is dead, something can change that fact, and it is still horrible, and words will never make that better. Nothing will make that better. After it happened she was numb, shattered, boneless, broken. She survived because people expected her to, so Leia took the Rebellion inside of her body, fashioning a new skeleton from it, forged in anger, and that is how she can still stand upright, as a frozen creature with bones of steel and one purpose – to crush the Empire. Well, mission accomplished. The Empire is gone, toppled at least legally, and there are so many years of work that still need to happen, so much healing and fixing that needs to be set in motion, but it lacks the same fire and brimstone urgency of the battles and suddenly Leia is left without the burning in her bones that has powered her for so long. Alderaan is avenged, she does not need to keep fighting, there are other people now, she does not need to be a figurehead, others will rise, they are at the start of being out of the woods, and Leia cannot leach life from the Rebellion the way she has been for so long, she cannot live off of anger and nothing else. 

And yet, _she does not want to die_. It’s a weird thought, when it finally does occur to her, she does not want to die. The gaping open wound in her chest is still there, still pulsing and throbbing and oozing and will always be there, but she has learned how to compensate, how to walk and not let the pain disrupt her balance. And she feels things, things that aren’t anger and numb, because Luke has been shining nothing but kindness and warmth and love on her skin for as long as she’s known him, and it feels warm and safe and good. and Chewie is understanding and protective and his distinctive calls make her feel like there is a glow surrounding her own small presence, making her feel strong. And _Han_ , for so long he was nothing but annoyance, tunneling under her skin, but. (the secret is) until him she had not felt that kind of silly, pointless indignation in _so long_ , only operating under giant-the-Empire-must-be-annihilated type anger, and to be upset about something breathing too close to her somehow the greatest gift she had received in a long time. (besides, if he gets under her skin, at least that reminds her that she does have skin, that she is a person, that she is not just a demon of rage and hate, but a girl, infuriated by a smuggler, by a random, idiotic man) They pull her back into herself, even when _herself_ is sad and hurting and somehow she has ended up with this new family and the Alderaan part of her is _gone_ , a piece of her heart that will never return, but her heart is still growing and decidedly infinite and she is more than she would have ever thought possible.

(She flexes her fingers and remembers what it feels like to be a _person, just a person_ , not a rebellion, not a revolution, just a girl with fingers and toes who’s hungry and who would very much like to look at the stars, whose bones aren’t made of iron, are not fueled by the death of all her people. Her bones, her _real bones_ are soft and pliable and they aren’t always good at keeping her upright because there’s a hole inside of her and it _hurts_ , and it bleeds, but she does her best and is not alone and would really like to see those stars.)


End file.
